If You Love Hydrangeas, Consider One of These Flowering Gems for Your Southern Garden

One of the South's favorite shrubs, azaleas offer some of the best curb appeal potential of all these flowering staples, which is why you'll see so many blooming in Southern gardens from spring to fall, depending on the variety. When choosing the best spot to plant, know that azaleas like plenty of morning light, but you might want to avoid areas that get midday or hot afternoon full sun. 

See more easy-to-follow tips on how to pick and grow the best azaleas.

This tender white flowering shrub makes any garden look classic and timeless. Not to mention, it boasts some hard-to-resist attributes: beautiful evergreen leaves, snow-white blossoms, an intoxicating fragrance, and the ability to withstand the Southern summer heat.

See our complete guide to growing gardenias.

Big-flowered rhododendrons are a beauty to behold, especially considering you don't see them nearly as often as other classics like hydrangeas. Why? Because sadly, they are more finicky to grow in the South. (Experienced gardeners will like the challenge.) If you take the chance, you might just have the showiest shrubs on the whole street.

See Grumpy the Gardener's best tips for growing rhododendrons in the South.

Add a healthy dose of the tropics to your garden with these funnel-shaped blossoms. Hibiscus likes a lot of sun and water, which makes it a great option if you're looking to add a new container plant to your collection that you can move around freely and keep moist throughout growing season. Hot tip: Perennial hibiscus makes the better pick to grow as a shrub, while tropical is a showy option for containers. 

This classic flower has a long blooming season and loves the climate down here in the South. We are in the heart of camellia country, after all, not the other way around! In general, camellias grow and bloom better in partial shade, with shelter from hot afternoon sun. The reward is a table-worthy display of pink and white blossoms. 

See our complete guide on how to grow camellias.

Lilacs typically don't bloom here due to our short, mild winters; but Grumpy found us a new variety that can take the Southern heat, y'all. Called 'Bloomerang,' it comes in two colors: light purple and dark purple. Plant both for a heavenly wash of fat lavender bunches of blossoms. 

Read more of what Grumpy had to say about this special Deep South-friendly lilac.

These eye-catching blooms—4 to 6 inches wide—appear in autumn and initially bloom in white, fade to pink as they age, and eventually turn red. One plant, three colors. And who said you needed to pick! To grow, you can sow seeds in spring, but the easiest way to propagate it is to simply root cuttings in water. Easy-peasy.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a prettier flower than peonies. Coming in all sorts of colors and types (both herbaceous perennials and more bushy shrubs), find the best one to fit into your garden and fill your vases with our handy guide to peonies. 

Weigela has experienced a renaissance of sorts in the past decade, going from a ho-hum one-season wonder to a colorfully diverse repeat bloomer. It makes for a great ground shrub speckled with tiny blooms to fill any flowerbed you have lying around that needs some personality.

The open, fluffy clusters of delicate blooms is what makes the spider flower (also known as cleomes) a favorite among gardeners who want an easy-care annual that blooms in pink, purple, white, and lavender during the summertime. Many choose to plant a cluster of cleomes in mass, which makes it look and feel just like a blooming shrub.

There is a misconception out there that roses are hard to grow—fickle, you could say. That's a whole bunch of bologna if you just pick correctly and give them a little TLC. Old Garden Roses, for example, are tough as nails and bloom like crazy. The rose shown here, 'Duchesse de Brabant' Rose, is an heirloom variety from Texas that boasts a fragrant scent and pretty pink petals. 

We had to include this beloved fragrant perennial with bell-shaped bloom—though not a shrubby bush—because it offers a serious pop of vibrant color for any garden stuck feeling a little lackluster, especially when planted as a flowerbed cluster. More impatient gardeners appreciate that it blooms in early to mid-spring.

Per The Southern Living Garden Book, the "size of the flower spike is directly related to the size of the bulb. Biggest bulbs are desirable for exhibition plants or for potting; next largest size is satisfactory for bedding outside. Small bulbs give smaller, looser clusters with more widely spaced flowers."

See our complete guide to growing hyacinth.